Mumbai, After making the second time MLA speaker in Bihar, BJP in its new experiment has made a first time MLA in Maharashtra as speaker. After the formation of the new government in Maharashtra under the leadership of Shiv Sena rebel Eknath Shinde, a special session of the Legislative Assembly was called, the first day of which the speaker was elected on Sunday. BJP MLA Rahul Narvekar won the election. In this way, the Shinde faction has got a big victory in the first test of strength. Shinde has to prove his majority on Monday.
In the speaker’s election held on Sunday, BJP had fielded Rahul Narvekar, while the opposition alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi had fielded Rajan Salvi. Narvekar got 164 votes, while Shiv Sena’s Rajan Salvi got 107 votes. Seven NCP MLAs and two Congress MLAs were absent from the house during voting. A total of 12 MLAs did not vote in the Speaker’s election.
After the assembly proceedings began, on the demand of the opposition, Deputy Speaker Narhari Jirwal started the counting of MLAs. At present, there were 287 MLAs in the assembly and the figure of 144 was needed for victory. However, only 275 MLAs participated in the voting. Two jailed NCP MLAs – Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh – did not cast their vote. Apart from these two, five more NCP MLAs did not cast their votes. Two MLAs each from BJP and Congress and one MLA from MMIM also did not vote. Both the SP MLAs including Abu Azmi also did not cast their vote.
Sunil Prabhu, leader of Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray faction, said that 39 rebel MLAs have voted in the election of the President in violation of the whip of Shiv Sena. Action will be taken against them. However, Rahul Narvekar was in Shiv Sena before 2014, but did not get Lok Sabha ticket, then left the party and joined NCP. In 2014, he contested from the Maval Lok Sabha seat, but lost. Narvekar then joined the BJP. In 2016, Narvekar became a member of the Legislative Council from the Governor’s quota. In the 2019 assembly elections, he won from the Colaba assembly seat. Rahul Narvekar got votes of 106 BJP MLAs, 39 Shiv Sena MLAs and 19 independents.
